284 SEPTEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
Is there a faster way to shoot to musical stardom in the early
21st century than to have Harry Styles tweet a cryptic reference
to your debut single, “1950”? Never mind that you’re an almost unknown
19-year-old Brooklynite referencing a Patricia Highsmith novel from
the 1950s in a quirky homage to queer
history. The Directioners will seek you
out, and they will make you a star.
It’s ironic that this is the ostensible
origin story for King Princess, the
appropriately gender-playful moniker
of Mikaela Straus, whose startlingly
innovative music could not be further
from the engineered appeal of One
Direction. Her 2018 debut EP, Make
My Bed, is a tight collection of
meticulously crafted pop gems, with
Straus essentially writing, producing,
and playing every instrument herself.
The EP so impressed the producer Mark
Ronson that he decided to make it the
very first release on his new label, Zelig
Records. “It was like a gut punch,” says
Ronson of hearing Straus for the first
time. “It was like reading every Ramona
Quimby book. It’s the closest I’ll come to
understanding being a teenage girl who
doesn’t feel like she fits in.” Fiona Apple
later joined forces with Straus on a new
version of the ’90s star’s “I Know.” “We
developed this crazy friendship. I feel so
blessed to have her as somebody to ask
questions,” Straus says by phone from
her girlfriend’s house in Los Angeles.
It’s early afternoon, but they’ve just
woken up. Straus has been playing a
lot of festivals lately, and it takes a toll.
When asked about her on-the-road
self-care regimen, she laughs: “Like a
layer of pasta and then, like, a layer of
La Mer and then just, like, tears.”
Straus wants her upcoming album,
Cheap Queen, out this fall, to sound
mature—“I feel like I’ve grown so
much”—with a wide-ranging sonic
palette. It’s a fitting aspiration, given that
eclecticism was part of Straus’s earliest
musical education; she played guitar, bass,
keys, and drums in her childhood home
in Williamsburg, where her father had a
home studio. “I have my dad in my head
saying, ‘Well, all these songs sound the
same.’ I always think about that.” The tracks on Cheap Queen do vary—
from the woozy R&B synths of “Better” to the bite-size Muzak-esque
ditty “Useless Phrases.” The distinct sound of each recording is in part due
to her collaborators—the Dap-Kings, Tobias Jesso Jr., and Father John
Misty—but it’s also just a natural expression of Straus’s unapologetically
genderqueer identity. “I write songs about girls. That’s my shtick,”
she says, laughing. “I’m going to keep dating girls and getting my heart
broken, so there’s going to be many more songs.”—r ach el hahn
Watch This Throne
Just before the release of her debut album,
K ing Princess is ready to ascend.
MUSIC
GOLDEN EYE
KING PRINCESS APPLIES A
DISCERNING LENS TO HER
MUSICAL INFLUENCES.
VLIFE
CHAD DAVIS,
them,
2019.